


the way you say it

by supersonica



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, February Kiss Prompt, Feelings, Other, Sad feelings, Slightly Hopeful Feelings, Supernatural Kiss, caleb finally admits a feeling about molly, discussion of the fact that molly's not there, ghost molly, reference to the grieving process, the answer is a vague shrug, why is this a kiss prompt you may ask, yeza is probably younger than caleb but he's still got those Dad Vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 09:04:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17895554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supersonica/pseuds/supersonica
Summary: Sometimes love isn't seen in longing looks, or the quirk of a smile at a badly told joke. Sometimes you can't feel it in the press of an arm around the waist or a heavy coat around the shoulders.Sometimes love is in how you say a name.





	the way you say it

**Author's Note:**

> this is none of the fics I'm trying to write but here we are, I guess

05 (forehead kiss & supernatural kiss) 

 

Third watch was quiet, as always. 

The only sound was the crackling of the fire in front of them, fhe occasional whistle of a bird in the trees. Caleb had taken to sharing his watches with Yeza ever since they'd rescued him frkm Gor Dranas, knowing that the alchemist was far less likely to pry into his head than some of the other party members. 

They'd all shared stories, of course, they'd all taken turns filling Yeza in on their adventures—and misadventures—over the last five months. Yeza had delighted in Jester and Beau's tales of piracy on the high seas, Fjord's deadpan summaries of their many, many shopping trips, Caduceus' observations on the wildlife they'd encountered. Most of all, obviously, the halfling had listened for hours on end as Nott told him every anecdote and worn out joke and sarcastic aside she could think of. It was so, so clear—the adoration on both their faces as she led him through a, Caleb had to admit, rather confusing narrative from the day she'd been transformed until the moment they broke into his cell. 

Maybe it was from being so close to a couple made whole again, but the cloud that had lived over the group since—since _that day_ —had, if not lifted, then lightened, just a little. And that lightening had, to Caleb's surprise, given way to a different kind of comeback amongst the Nein, one of memories and mentions and ' _wouldn't he have loved that_?'

Yeza had accepted it all, and, with the practised air of someone familiar with grief, taken to asking everyone rather touching questions about their time together, designed to bring out only the fondest memories, and it worked.

Mostly. 

“Were you in love with him, then?” Yeza asked, peering over his half moon glasses at Caleb. 

Caleb's brows drew together, confused. “Why would you—no, I—no.”

Yeza raised an eyebrow, stirring the tea in his mug and letting the silence between them grow. Caleb knew what he was doing, obviously, trying to wait him out so that the awkwardness of the quiet between them would force Caleb into talking but there was no way he would break first. Absolutely not. 

“Why do you say that?” Caleb said, after a few excruciating minutes.  _ It’s curiosity _ , he told himself,  _ pure, academic curiosity _ .

Yeza's mouth quirked upwards in the same way Nott's did when she was trying not to laugh. “Well,” he said, setting his tea aside, “you're the only one that says his name.”

“That… does not make sense.”

“Sure it does.” Yeza pushed his glasses further up his face. “The others, your blue friends especially, mention him in conversation all the time. ‘ _ Oh, Molly would've loved to meet that merchant, he would've laughed so hard at that play, he would've wasted all his money on that silk scarf.’  _ Even your half-orc still calls the tea man by the wrong name sometimes. Veth even—” and here his voice grew gentle “—told me about him, said what an asshole he was, that first night we were back together. It feels like he's still here, given how often you lot talk about him.”

Caleb coughed. “ _ Ja,  _ well, he is a difficult person to forget. He was, um. Very important. To all of us. But I don't—why—?”

Yeza was quiet for a moment, watching the fire flicker in front of them. 

“It's the  _ way _ you say his name.”

The wizard could only stare at him, willing his pulse to slow down at the accusation.  _ That doesn't make any sense,  _ he thought,  _ Yeza's just projecting, there's no logic to it, he's reading between lines that aren't there. _

“I would know,” Yeza continued. “It's the same for me. Veth asked me, that first night, if I wanted to call her by the same name the rest of you use. And I told her,  _ ‘Well, my button, I rather like being the only person to use this name for you. Call me a fool, but it makes me feel special.’  _ And, if I can be perfectly honest—as honest as an old romantic can be, anyway—I didn't even know your friend's full name until you said it.”

— _ “Mister Mollymauk?” he says, holding the sword, trying not to let a smile soften his voice. It doesn't work.  _

_ “Mister Caleb!” Molly replies, letting his own accent twist around the letters in a way Caleb will remember for the rest of his life _ —

“Oh?” 

Caleb broke eye contact with Yeza, poking the campfire with a long stick. 

“Veth and the others might have you pinned as a hard man, but you, my boy, are as sentimental as I am.” Yeza leaned back, smiling at him in a way that—and realising this hit him hard in the ribs—reminded Caleb very much of his own father. “I won't think you're weak for loving someone who's gone. The gods know I never stopped feeling like a sap when I thought about Veth's crooked little smile. Who am I to judge you for wanting your fellow back?”

“He wasn't mine.” Caleb said immediately. “He wasn't my… anything. He was barely my friend.”

Though he wasn't looking at the halfling, Caleb could feel Yeza's gaze hard on his face, open and honest and trusting. 

_ Fuck it,  _ said the same part of Caleb's brain that saw Yeza and thought ‘ _ Leofric’,  _ thought ‘ _ family’,  _ thought ‘ _ home _ ’ _.  _

“But, if we had travelled together much longer,” he said, struggling to put the burning heat on the back of his tongue into words. Yeza was silent, leaving Caleb to wrangle his thoughts into coherency. 

“If we had travelled together much longer, I almost certainly would have fallen in love with him.”

Yeza nodded, reaching across the space between them to grab Caleb's forearm. “My boy, I think you might already be there.”

Caleb swallowed. “That is quite possibly true.”

“Have you told anyone?” the alchemist asked, not letting go of his grounding grip on Caleb's arm. 

He scoffed. “Who would I tell? I cannot tell Nott, she's, she wouldn't—”

“—she's a pragmatist, is my wife. I love her, and it's true, she wouldn't know what to do with that kind of confession. Don't worry about it.” Yeza smiled, though Caleb wasn't sure how much of it was as a comfort to him and how much an involuntary reaction to talking about Nott. 

“And the others are, well, the others. Mollymauk—” Caleb couldn't help the small grin as he said the name, and maybe,  _ maybe _ Yeza has a point there “—wasn't  _ with  _ me, he didn't—we weren't ever going to be like that. He was Yasha's best friend and Jester's tiefling buddy and Fjord's roommate and Beau's nemesis, but he wasn't my—he wasn't mine. I did not want to burden the others with pointless, unrequited feelings that will go nowhere productive.”

_ But I'm glad I told you,  _ Caleb did not say, though he was fairly sure Yeza understood it anyway. It felt good to tell someone, apart from Frumpkin, who'd known before Caleb had. 

“Well,” said Yeza, after a few moments of listening to the fire crackle in the night, “you're a wizard, aren't you?”

Caleb blinked. “School of transmutation. What does that have to do with anything?”

Yeza leveled him a flat look and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back. “Caleb, my boy, one day you will be able to give my wife her body back, yes?”

“Yes I—I certainly aim to try.”

“And you want to bend space and time to your will, correct?”

Caleb's eyes flicked to Yeza's face, alarmed. “Who told you—?”

“My wife is a very sharp woman, Caleb Widogast.”

“...well, yes, that's correct.”

“So,” Yeza raised his eyebrows, “if you can swap around bodies and souls, and mess with the flow of time itself, what on earth makes you think you won't ever see your Molly again?”

Truth be told, Caleb had considered that possibility before, though he'd always stopped himself from dwelling on it. The thought of seeing Molly again, wonderful though it was, was far too idealistic, far too much better than what Caleb deserved, to ever seem like something obtainable, something he would ever have. Much better to focus on the mistakes he had to fix, the lives he'd already ruined, than to think about the life he could've had with the rest of the Nein—fighting monsters and saving people and maybe, if Caleb was very, very lucky, returning that forehead kiss one day. 

But Caleb was tired. It had been a long journey to rescue Yeza, and a longer one still to get everyone back safe to Felderwin, and he was so,  _ so _ tired of thinking about all the pain and misery he still had to go through. There was a very small voice in the back of Caleb's head—a voice which usually sounded like a young goblin woman, but sometimes had a motherly Zemnian accent, and, on very lonely days, sometimes a carnie lilt—that had been growing stronger and stronger the longer Caleb travelled with the Nein. 

It said:  _ isn't this good? Isn't this _ — _ aren't these people _ — _ worth staying with? You're helping people here, you're building a new family, you're going to help fix more mistakes.  _

_ Isn't this enough?  _

Caleb didn't know if it would ever be enough, enough to drown out the Ikithon screaming at him to do better, to give this up as he deserved. But it was a start, anyway. And having Yeza, having someone who'd lost his family twice now, talk to him about love—that's what it was, really—talk to him about another way he could use the powers he sought after, well. It helped, more than Caleb had thought it could've. 

“That's true,” Caleb admitted. “There is a chance I will see him again.”

Yeza nodded and stood, seeing, as Caleb did, that their watch was nearly at an end. He turned to walk over to where his bedroll was slotted against Nott's.

“As long as you don't stop saying his name, I think you'll be fine,” he said over his shoulder. 

Caleb stoked the fire with that stick and mumbled to himself, in the same tone he used for casting his fire spells. In the barest dawn light, the coals almost looked like a pair of red eyes glimmering back at him. 

“Maybe I will see you one day, Mister Mollymauk.” He couldn't keep the smile out of his voice. 

Caleb followed Yeza's lead in retiring a few minutes later, falling into a dreamless sleep only a few moments after his head hit the bedroll. And if he felt a phantom kiss on his forehead that night, as he lay on his bedroll, well. 

How was he to know it was the ghost of Mister Mollymauk? 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeza And Nott Best Couple 2k19, Please.


End file.
